'This is the first time I’m really enjoying school': Students develop love of learning at Cork Prison school
Work on display in the woodwork room at Cork Prison. Picture: Dan Linehan
Cian, not his real name, is currently serving a sentence for theft at Cork Prison, a medium security jail for adult men from Cork, Waterford, and Kerry.
“I’m 32 years of age and in and out of prison since I’m 18. I was only a young fella going over to the old jail,” he explained. He has had his struggles with cocaine addiction but this time around, he feels like a different man.
When he started engaging with the Cork Prison school, he learned he has dyslexia. Now that he knows this about himself, he has been given a scanning pen, a pocket-size device that pronounces words of text out loud.
“It helps me out an awful lot that I can go over to the school, get a book and go back to the cell, and learn to read.
“I’ve four kids myself so I will be able to help my partner at home with the homework, or read them a bedtime story.
"Now that I know that I’m not, there’s other ways that I can sort out this problem, the teachers help me out and I understand a lot more.
“It’s your own time, it’s your own pace and you can have a chat. It’s taking you out of the prison environment.”
Cian is one of the prisoners the meets on a visit to the school inside Cork Prison. The education services, which are open to all prisoners, are run by Cork Education and Training Board.
It also runs a pre and post-release programme, as well as the Dillon’s Cross Project, which provides educational opportunities for the female relatives of prisoners and ex-prisoners.
The school also works closely with the Probation Services and the Cork Alliance Centre.
The school’s curriculum ranges from basic literacy and numeracy up to Open University degrees, with everything else in between.
When the visits in December, the school is busy. It is open and bright and a colourful word map covers the floor, listing different projects and resources available.
There are guards stationed in the school, it is a prison after all, but they are not in each classroom looking over students’ shoulders.
Many doors are open, and students can move relatively freely from class to class.
In the wood workshop, two students are working intently with tools on projects, while students in the art room are sketching with their teacher.
All rooms feel like they have the same energy you would find in any college or further education workshop.
Classrooms do have panic buttons in case of emergency, but they are not obvious, and I am told they are never used.
The prison school has dealt with a few minor altercations between students over the years, by the sounds of it no more serious or out of step with your average secondary school.
The school is open mornings and afternoons five days a week and its students are made up of a mix between the two prison blocks.
At maximum capacity, the school can take 60 prisoners a day and, in a week, half the prison population will attend classes.
Kept open as much as it can, it is usually the last place the prison closes.
One guard says the school “runs like clockwork”, which helps to make their job easier.
Most prisoners have had a negative experience of education, and many are early school-leavers, according to the governor of Cork Prison Peter O’Brien.
Despite these early experiences, many do find themselves attending classes. While education is open to all prisoners, it is not mandatory to sign up.
“They don’t have the distractions that they do outside, so school becomes a social outlet," Mr O'Brien said.
The ultimate goal is to show prisoners what a positive experience of education can look like, and that they can hopefully pass this on to their children.
"It's about breaking the cycle of inter-generational imprisonment. You’ve people who come into prison who can’t read or write, and they leave having completed a QQI. You’ve people completing their Leaving Cert, prisoners who would do an Open University course or continue with a college course they were doing before prison.”
Sean, not his real name, left school early although he enjoyed primary school. He has been in and out of prison for 40 years.
“I left school early because I thought I knew it all, which is probably my biggest regret. I got a couple of jobs here and there but looking back, I should have stayed in school.
“School was different back in them days. In the secondary school I went to, everyone ended up in prison. They’d be lashing the hands off you in the morning for being late.
“Most people get involved in education here to get out of the cell or to stay out of the yard because in the yard there can be trouble, it is a prison.”
The school has had a number of mental health initiatives recently, he added.
Noel, also not his real name, said the first time he enjoyed school has been in the prison.
“I enjoyed some classes before, I enjoyed technical graphics and metalwork but like languages, I haven’t got the head for it. I was good at maths and I liked English, but French, I just had no interest.
He likes classes like pottery, music, and art.
It is the practical and creative courses that get the prisoners in the door of the school initially, head teacher Edel Cunningham said. Sports and music are also popular.
“If I had only academic subjects running, I would have a fraction [of the students] but by having the practical subjects, the lads are coming over here."
Once they are in the door and trying their hand at the practical subjects, they tend to be more receptive toward longer courses.
Every year, the school has two or three students doing Leaving Cert, and about five to seven students doing Open University courses.
“I heard someone describe teaching in a prison as like teaching on a bus. They are in and out all the time, they are transferred to other prisons, and they’ve short sentences, long journeys.
“You are trying to provide an education system that provides for everyone. The ETB’s motto would be ‘a pathway for every learner’ and that’s what we are trying to do, all the time.”
In the new year, the school hopes to launch a barbering course, with such a practical course popular among students who hope to find work when they leave prison.
A lot of prisoners also tend to have suffered trauma in early childhood.
Many would also have undiagnosed learning disabilities, with many finding out as adults for the first time in prison, like Cian.
An active inclusion officer regularly visits and sits with prisoners. If she finds someone has dyslexia, she has sourced scanning pens, which have been a “gamechanger”.
Ms Cunningham said: “Very few of the lads would have no level of literacy but a lot of them wouldn’t have the confidence and that stops them from progressing.
“With these, if they are struggling with one or two words, these can help them with those one or two words and they can move on.”
As a result, the number of prisoners reading and looking for different books has grown. The school also has a student council, made up of seven prisoners representing different cultures and nationalities in the prison population.
It’s a great way for teachers to hear prisoners’ take on what is happening with classes.
“Oftentimes we think we’re fine but the first meeting we had, we were stunned. A lot of the lads were saying they didn’t know different courses were starting.”
For Cian, he is now aiming to set up a crime awareness course in the prison with one of the school’s teachers.
“I’m from the Travelling community and a lot of us in prison here, a lot of us wouldn’t be in for feuding. It would be mostly robbing and stealing. You have to ask the question why? It's because of their addictions, because they owe money to other people.
“They don’t ask about the victim. My conscience came at me, and I felt very guilty about the crimes I committed so I’d like to set up something in the school for me to explain to other young Travellers that you are not just doing your own family harm by coming to prison, you are doing harm to the victims.”
